There is some hope, I think, in the idea of the commonwealth, which seems to acknowledge than we all have a common interest or share in the land, an interest that precedes our interest in private property. Of the precedence of our share in the common wealth the best evidence is that we share also a common health; the two, in fact, are inseparable. If we have the "right to life," as we have always supposed, then that right must stand upon the further right to air, water, food, clothing, and shelter.

I am an uneasy believer in the right of private property because I know that this right can be understood as the right to destroy property, which is to say the natural or the given world. I do not believe that such a right exists, even though its presumed existence has covered the destruction of a lot of land.